A Critical Examination of the Beliefs about Learning a Foreign Language at Primary School

because 'it's a new thing'. Matthew would like to learn Greek because 'some of
my famely [sic] only speak Greek'.

Robert

Robert is a boy of high ability who speaks English. He says he enjoys French
as it is 'different'. He says he finds the words easy as some of them are like
English. He does not like homework or writing and says he finds writing difficult.
He likes getting into groups because we can 'exchange our ideas'. Robert says
that saying things make him feel confident but that 'asking questions of boys
and girls (a reference to the use of personal pronouns) is difficult'.

Shafik

Shafik is a boy of average ability who speaks English and Farsi. He says he
enjoys French because it is new and fun. He would like to Ieam more French
because when he goes to France he can speak it. He would have liked to do
more reading, writing and homework. He liked moving around class and liked
the worksheets because 'they were like revision'. He found saying long
sentences difficult because 'we had to say some diffacult [sic] words'. Shafik
would like to be able 'to work up a Conversaion [sic]'. He looks forward to telling
his teacher at secondary school what he has learned, (which, ac∞rding to what
he says on the questionnaire, is 'saying the names of objects in French').

Shafik does not know whether he would choose a different language.

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